Influencer Marketing Performance Can Be Guaranteed and Measured as Media

Before you even start trying to engage influencers, think about your objectives.

The best practice was shared by WHOSAY CMO Paul Kontonis, who joined Havas PR CEO Marian Salzman and Cision Sr. Director of Growth Marketing Daniel Watson at "The Art of Influencing Influencers" webinar.

"We like to start every campaign with selecting your objectives: awareness, engagement, sentiment or action," Kontonis said at the webinar, aimed at better targeting, identifying and engaging influencers with an eye on building long term relationships and measurable results. "Focus your efforts on your main objective."

Kontonis explained that WHOSAY takes full control of the creative and production processes to ensure proper brand messaging and full FTC compliance. "We do everything from casting the influencer/talent to producing, distributing and measuring the campaign content," he said.

He added that by leveraging first party data through its apps and platforms, and by getting the talent involved in the creative process through a mutually trusting and respectful relationship with the brand, WHOSAY is able to guarantee performance. "We look at the performance of the campaign and optimize it in real time," Kontonis said. "At the end of the day, this should be a predictable performance."

The WHOSAY CMO emphasized the need to measure content as media, meaning that instead of simply reporting the progress of a campaign in terms of "likes, comments and shares," marketers can be looking at effective CPMs, CPVs, CPCs and CPAs instead.

Furthermore, WHOSAY acknowledges that measuring influencer marketing as media helps solve its clients’ main problem: how to deliver a successful campaign on a mobile device. "We look at what we do through a different context, which is the mobile device," he said. "We are solving for the mobile advertising format through influencer marketing because it is what it cuts through the clutter."